Before being appointed to the High Court, he served for periods as a legal officer in the Royal Australian Navy and as Solicitor-General of Victoria.
He completed his undergraduate education at the University of Melbourne, living at Ormond College and received a Bachelor of Laws with honours.
In 1982, he was appointed a justice of the High Court of Australia, a position he held until retiring on 15 August 1997.
Dawson is currently a professorial fellow at the Melbourne Law School, and an adjunct professor at Monash University.
[5] Dawson headed a Royal Commission into the 1998 explosion at a natural gas processing plant at Longford, which killed two people and crippled Victoria's energy supply for weeks.